Comic Vine Review

Generation Hope #15

Hope, Scott and Emma have an argument. Hope's team has an argument with bad 90's heroes. Lots to love, right?

The Good

As someone who thinks the Hellfire Club has been consistently lame, I'll say that this issue is a good primer into why someone should care about their place in the X-Men history. The flashbacks to Shaw's atrocities at least say "care about him for this arc, or in this book. You won't have to put up with the rest of the other crap."

This issue also did a good job of explaining Emma Frost's stake in Shaw's return, and refreshes the readers as to, again, why they should care. As someone who dislikes Emma very much, I at least could see where she was coming from in worrying. I also may have liked Doctor Nemesis telling her that her only roles are "telepathy and [being a] clothes horse;" that's pretty much sums up my feelings toward her, too.

I like the introduction of No-Girl, as her character is unique enough that she should be able to contribute to the strength of the book. It'll be interesting to see where her symbiosis with Zero takes her.

The Bad

For some reason, I've felt like I've read the premise to this issue before. Oh wait: I have. Having Scott sitting across from an absurdly powerful mutant and have them arguing about something worked well once before, but this issue it just felt tiring and unnecessary.

Scott and Emma just seemed to be berating Hope for no reason, especially when she had no idea who Sebastian Shaw was, or what he had done.

The Verdict

This book was mediocre in most senses of the word: the art kind of just fell down a ravine in terms of quality after the first few pages, useless characters from the 90's showed up (Random was every referenced as a bad cliche in the book), and the major conflict was solved Hope flashing the almost-Phoenix Force, or what Marvel wants us to think is the Phoenix Force.

Protip: it was scary/awesome the first time, but the more times you whip it out, the less impressive it gets.